My paper on Hume's Blush Tea-Scented China

It's true, I've never seen suckering on any plant of a rootstock when nothing was grafted onto it. We have a row of virus-indexed common rootstocks.

I can see I got a bit carried away with my reply here, so I have decided to edit it. I can understand what you are saying Simon, and where you are coming from, as the mere mention of "suckers" can put people off a rose. There are plenty of places on the internet and in botany text books that provide terminology and definitions. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the canes arising from a large clump of Multiflora (for example) are suckers. Yes they are basal shoots, but they are basal shoots that have suckered.
I am reminded of a friend who published a book on native plants recently who refused to use the common name "She-oak" in reference to Casuarina. It was her belief that the name was sexist. So I am well accustomed to the sensibilities of botany.

Roseman, AQIS are strict enough when it comes to importing cuttings. I'm sure they would be just as suspicious and vigilant with vials of tissue-cultured plants, perhaps moreso because they can't simply fumigate them with noxious chemicals. Actually I seem to recall enquiring about this around 6 years ago and got sent an inch thick manual on what must be done to satisfy entry requirements. They even want control over the kind of Agar mixtures used. It is also very expensive. I seem to recall I did the sums and it was a lot more expensive than trying to import cuttings, however the success rate may be much higher. Another big problem is that if AQIS finds a single mould spore growing in the jar, the whole jar will be destroyed.
I am hopeless at budding, so I decided that cuttings were pointless for me. By the time they reached me they would be long past their use-by date. (By the way, I tried some more budding recently and result was the same - all went black within a week! )
So I came to the conclusion that unless I have a few thousand dollars to spare, the tissue culture idea was not really feasible. I also recall that I could not find anyone in the other country who was willing or able to do the tissue culturing. Two of the ones I emailed said that Australia's requirements were too strict and so they never send anything to Australia.

Ian

Below is a photo of our "Humes Blush". Still very small plant and the flower is a bit rain affected but is very similar to the drawing in Pemberton's book

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As previously advised I am not sure where we got the original plant (which has since died) but a couple of cuttings survived. We have one and my wife's brother has another.

The plant grew to about a metre high and was very twiggy and suseptable to scale and white mites.

Wow! I would say very, very much indeedy similar. This looks like the same plant illustrated by Pemberton and possibly the same as Andrews. The petal colour is absolutely spot on as well. Good one! Is this the one you bought from MistyDowns? I hope so, as I have one on order from there for next season.

I even see a bud in the backgrouond and it definitely has very long sepals, and by the looks of it, quite a slender bud.

Ian

No this one did not come from Mistydowns. We can't quite remember. It may have come from Hilltop Nursery in Victoria(they no longer sell roses) or it may have come from a rose nursery up this way (long since closed and roses all gone).

I did order one from Mistydowns a few years ago but it ended up being just multiflora rootstock. I have not bothered ordering another one.

Below is a photo of the bud and the leaves from the plant.

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Thanks - hope I have better luck with MD. I can only guess the bud died and all you got was a Multiflora. lol! I would really love some cuttings of the one in your photos some time, or even better a budded plant.

It is still a bit young for cutting (its only a year or so old). I will see if there is any buds worth doing on it. It may be better to leave it until later in the year.

Thanks. Yes, let it grow into a big, healthy bush first.

Can anyone identify the little italicized backwards "s" or "z" in this passage? The extract is from The Gentleman's Magazine of 14 November 1811. It does not appear to be a pounds symbol, as they use the more typical £ symbol elsewhere in the publication. Some kind of weight or measure perhaps?

Empress Josephine had bought roses from the nursery, (hardly "curious plants"). The big news should have been that she had found a way to bypass the UK naval blockade by obtaining special permission, but this is not mentioned. She wanted the roses for planting at Malmaison, some of which were painted soon after by Redoute, including the one from Hume (i.e. Thory's "Rosa Indica fragrans").

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Ian, to me it looks like a % percentage symbol in the first, then in the second it looks more like the Italian L for lirra. The Magazine I assume is English, but she would pay in what we call Francs, did the French have other terms back in 1811 for their currency.

Ian forget last post, the brains trust has just come into the room and being a "pom" remembers the symbol for "franc" was/is like what looks like the old fashioned "f" , but with a little tail to the left as you look at the bottom of it. Mystery solved.

Thanks, but it is still a mystery. A friend just emailed me this reply "We think the symbol is l for lira. (In 1807, the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (occupying the north of the current state) introduced the lira as its currency)." The lira symbol did have a similar shape.
Another friend suggested shillings - sometimes represented as a backslash.

Also, the tail goes to the right not the left at bottom of the symbol.

Ok, mystery not solved, I have not looked yet but does "Mr Google" have old currency symbols

Ian, not sure whether you have the book titled "The Companion to Roses" by John Fisher, a Viking book published in 1986 and given to me by a dear friend from NZ who is no longer with us.

In it Fisher quotes the extract from The Genleman's Magazine exactly as you have but uses the English Pound symbol pre numerics, ie £700 and £2,600.

Fisher cites Hume's Blush in his chapter about Josephine and her roses at La Malmaison. Also, do you have the Graham Stuart Thomas Rose Book?

Thanks Rita, I don't have the GST book, but I think some parts of it are available on Google Books. Fisher may have been faced with the same dilemma as me. I'm learning not to trust any modern sources that mention "Hume's Blush" in print. As the Gentleman's Magazine shows, the name was not used, but modern authors have linked the name without any proof. Too many assumptions have been made re "Hume's Blush" and I'm trying to "demystify" the name.

Fisher has got it right about the pounds. Going back through the Gentleman's Magazine, they seem to use the typical pound symbol, and the symbol L., as well as the backwards italicized "s" - all of these symbols denote pounds. I suspect it is actually an italicized lower case "l".

At first I wondered about French livres, but these went out in 1795. The symbol is similar in some respects to the Italian lira, and in 1807 the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (occupying the north of the current state) introduced the lira as its currency. But I doubt if Josephine would have paid someone in the UK in that currency, unless it had something to do with the blockade. The UK may not have been accepting French currency so she had to pay in another currency that the UK would accept.

Never mind, case solved. It does seem to be an unusual "shorthand" symbol for pounds.

But I'm still looking for the earliest mention of the name Hume's Blush in print. I suspect the name will not appear until about the 1940s.

Very interesting reading, Ian. Keep up the detective work - and keep us posted.

My feeling in reading Dr Hurst's article in GST's Old Shrub Roses was that he wrote Hume's Blush tea-scented China in the sense of the Blush tea-scented China that belonged to Hume, rather than naming the rose Hume's Blush, as most authors have done since that time.

I agree tearose49, this is my impression as well. Future authors have jumped on this name after reading Hurst. Instead of them seeing it as Hume's "blush tea-scented China" they have taken it literally as "Hume's Blush". Anyway I am about to receive copies of Hurst's original work, which should reveal the answer. Will keep everyone informed.
I am actually finding it easier to keep track of everything to do with HB on this forum thread lately, as the paper I had intended to write is now a complete mess and will eventually need rewriting. I guess the problem with public forums is that anyone can read them, so it will not surprise me if someone in a foreign country should publish an article and steal all of my detective work. But such is life. I wonder if we can claim copyright on a forum thread?

The three Hurst papers from 1941 arrived in my mail box this morning. Have not had time to peruse them yet. Stay tuned!

Glad that you are safe from the floods up there Ian and that you have received the Hurst papers safely. You have some studying to do this weekend it seems and we all look forward to y our findings.

Alas I have a sister down in Swan Hill and she tells me today that they have been told to prepare for floods on Sunday. I was down in Geelong for a few days last week and there was low lying water everywhere down in that part of Victoria as well. The Geelong Botanic Gardens was looking quite good though and esp the Heritage Rose Garden section. Will share pics when time permits the resizing and uploading etc.

It seems to be the case that the areas that were worst affected by the drought are now the worst affected by the floods.
Will look forward to seeing your photos.

Wow, so much time has flown by! I read the Hurst papers some time ago but never got back to posting up my findings.

It seems that "Hume's Blush" was never a valid rose name. Hurst was partly responsible for coining this name, as he refers rather casually to the rose as "Hume's Blush China" and "Hume's Blush Tea-Scented China". But it appears he intended the name to be said Hume's "blush China" or Hume's "blush tea-scented China". Time and laziness has lead the modern world to combine the nouns and coin the nomen invalidum "Hume's Blush".

Hurst puts the date of introduction at 1809, the year before it was illustrated by Andrews in Colville's Nursery. He goes on to say it was then painted by Redoute in 1817 under its contemporary botanical name Rosa indica fragrans, which, as he says: "shows it to be a China rose considerably modified by the influence of the Wild Tea Rose (R. gigantea), the bias of that species being about 2:1"

He goes on to say it is not a true Tea Rose, which he defines as being the product of Yellow and Blush Chinas crossed with Noisettes and Bourbons. The resulting hybrids must still possess characters in common with true-breeding R. gigantea in order to be true Tea roses.

He argues that since there is some influence of the Wild Crimson China rose (R. chinensis) evident in "Hume's Blush" (11 out of 31 characters examined, with the remaining 20 characters showing influence of R. gigantea), this means that Hume's Blush should be regarded as a derivative hybrid from R. gigantea and R. chinensis.

He concludes that true Tea roses only came about towards 1830 when Hume's blush was crossed with the Bourbon and Noisette and Yellow China (aka Parks' Yellow Tea-Scented China).

He says that Park's Yellow should also be technically viewed as a derivative hybrid of chinensis and gigantea, not as a Tea Rose in its own right. He believes that both of the China-Gigantea hybrids were most likely diploid with 14 chromosomes. He goes on to say that both were "no longer available" by 1941. He does not say "extinct", so we can conclude he simply meant that both were no longer commercially available. He adds that Park's Yellow China had not been available since 1882.

Hurst places the taxonomic name of Parson's Pink China (1793), Hume's Blush China (1809) and Parks' Yellow China (1824) all as R. chinensis Jacq. X R. gigantea Collet. He maintains that these should not be seen as primary hybrids, but rather as derivative hybrids most likely produced after generations of crossing and selecting in Chinese gardens.

Ian,
I am fortunate to have recently obtained the complete fascimile to Les Roses, published by De Schutter between 1974-78.This is an exact copy of the initial large folio edition,and includes a 4th volume which includes
the english translation exactly of Thory's notes.The treasure in this volume is the work done by Gisele de la Roche in analysing the progression of his roses to the 1970's.
The copy was based upon her original volume and she grew most of the roses as well.
I'll have a look re Hume's Blush and if I can do the technical side of things we may be able to pass over some information if you would like.
I have 2 other contemporary books of his prints,and the notes would appear to be partially complete,more a summary.
Cheers,
Stephen